Five Times Peeta Mellark Said I Love You
by jeeno2
Summary: Even though sometimes she wasn't there to hear it.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: This little fic will have five parts. ;)**

* * *

 **One.**

* * *

Peeta walks into the classroom where the other five- and six-year-old kids will be today, biting his lip and wringing his hands anxiously in front of him.

When Rye made fun of him over breakfast today for being nervous on his first day of school Peeta stuck out his lower lip as far as he could and said, loudly, that he was _not_ nervous. But that was a lie. (Sometimes Peeta lies. Not often – his mother can usually tell when he's lying and he'll get in lots of trouble for it later. So it's usually not worth it. But sometimes – when his mother's not around, if his brothers are being really annoying and he thinks he can get away with it – he'll lie.)

For as long as he can remember Peeta's had to stay home on the first day of school and watch from the kitchen window as the big kids walk down the road to the District's little two-room schoolhouse, laughing and kicking rocks and roughhousing the second they're out of their mothers' sight.

Peeta can't quite believe the day for him to join the big kids is finally here. It doesn't seem real, him being here in his too-large pants and the shirt that used to be Rye's.

Despite what he told Rye earlier his stomach's been in knots all morning.

"Peeta?" Delly's mother eventually says, her voice as sweet and kind as her daughter. She comes up beside him and rests a gentle hand on his shoulder. Peeta wonders if his new teacher can tell how scared he is. "Would you like to join the rest of us for circle time?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cartwright," he manages, though the three little words trip over his tongue a bit on their way out. He nods and tries to smile at her as she shows him to his assigned spot on the carpet.

* * *

Later – when its time for Mrs. Cartwright to lead the afternoon meeting after lunch – it takes a very long time for most of the kids to settle down again.

Peeta can't really blame them. For most of them this is the longest they've ever been away from their parents. This new sort of freedom makes him feel a little wild himself – though he'd never do what some of the ruder boys are doing right now. (Spitballs are disgusting.)

Peeta's just about to elbow Delly in the ribs and ask her what she wants to do after school today when suddenly, a little girl Peeta hadn't noticed until this moment climbs up on a stool in the middle of their classroom and starts to sing.

His eyes snap to hers instantly. His arm drops to his side and his mouth forms a great big wide _O_ before he even realizes he's doing it.

She's singing "The Valley Song." That much Peeta knows. He's only heard it a few times, usually when people from the Seam come into the bakery to trade squirrels for bread from his father.

But Peeta's never heard the Valley Song sung quite like this before. It sounds like starlight and birdsong and the rising sun, and he's mesmerized.

The girl is pretty. Not _pretty_ in the boring sort of way a lot of girls in Town are pretty. This girl is _interesting_ pretty. Her skin is darker than his, and her hair is long and flows down her back in two shining braids tied loosely at the ends with little red plaid ribbons that match her dress. Her eyes are closed as she sings, as though she doesn't know or even care if anyone else in the room is listening. (But they are listening. Everyone is. Even the boys who were throwing spitballs a moment ago have stopped, eyes raptly drawn to the girl standing on the stool in the front of the room, unable to look at anything else.)

Peeta doesn't understand why his stomach feels all funny while he watches her. He doesn't understand why he's no longer able to hear or feel or think about anything but this girl, standing in front of him, and singing all the joy he suddenly feels in his heart.

* * *

A few weeks ago Peeta overheard Braden, his oldest brother, tell some girl that he loved her.

Peeta laughed pretty hard about it later that night with Rye.

But when the girl who sang today – Katniss; her name is Katniss Everdeen, he knows now; Delly told him after school – stepped down from her stool and looked directly at him with her brilliant, silvery eyes, Peeta thought, suddenly, that maybe he almost understood what Braden must have meant.

Lying in bed that night Peeta whispers it into his pillow, those three little words. Quietly, so his brothers don't wake up. Just to test them out.

The words feel and taste funny in his mouth. But they make his heart speed up a little all the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

* * *

"I love you, Katniss Everdeen."

The words practically fly out of Peeta's mouth in his haste to say them at last. To the girl he's loved since before he even knew what this kind of love meant. To everyone back home. To all of Panem.

The crowd assembled in Caesar Flickerman's studio goes absolutely wild.

"Magnificent!" Caesar Flickerman roars, his face a glowing mask of happiness. He says it to the crowd, of course. Not to either him or to Katniss. But in the moment Peeta can't be bothered to care that for Caesar, all of this is just part of the show.

Peeta takes Katniss' hand in his and rubs gentle circles over the back of it. Her hand is warm, and much smaller than his. But it's strong, and it's lovely, and – oh, every single _part_ of her is just so lovely.

As Caesar turns his attention to Katniss Peeta's mind starts to wander. He thinks about how wonderful it will be to finally be _with_ Katniss in the way he's wanted to be with her for years. He daydreams about showing her his room. His artwork.

He thinks about what it'll be like to kiss her. To _really_ kiss her, once there are no cameras recording their every move. His heart starts to race as he remembers how she'd tasted (of pears and lamb stew and hope). And as he thinks back to how soft and pliant her lips had been against his back in the cave.

Peeta realizes, suddenly, that he wants to taste her like that again. And again. And with the horrors of the Games behind them he knows there will never be anything standing between them again.

He chances a glance up at Katniss' face as she answers another question from Caesar. She's smiling, just as Peeta's smiling. But her smile doesn't reach her eyes. She keeps looking over Caesar's shoulder as though she's trying to find someone in the audience, but as soon as their host notices her doing it her eyes snap right back to his.

 _She must be so nervous,_ Peeta thinks. She hates being in front of crowds. If he knows anything about Katniss Everdeen, he knows this.

He gives her hand what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze, trying to tell her, wordlessly, that soon they'll be home and able to begin their new lives together, all of this nothing but a distant memory.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

* * *

Peeta knows it's wrong. Depraved.

He knows he should stop.

But no matter how much he berates himself during the day, night after night his right hand finds its way inside his soft sleeping pants of its own accord, almost as though it's a separate entity over which he has no control.

 _She's not in love with me_ , he tells himself, over and over again like a mantra during the day. _It's Gale she really wants_. _She only invites me into her bed at night for comfort._

But at night, the moment he closes his eyes, and with Katniss' soft, strong body pressed up against his, Peeta's mind invariably replays every moment they spent together that day in an endless loop. In his mind's eye he can see the gentle slope of her slender shoulders. The curve of her small breasts, hidden from sight by whatever getup she'd worn for that day's activities.

And then without even meaning to Peeta suddenly imagines what Katniss must look like underneath her nightgown. How she would look lying completely bare beside him, right here in her train compartment. And he's hard as a rock in an instant.

Resigned, he tries to do it quickly so as not to disturb her. He always tries to think of other girls, other bodies, other breasts at first. But it never works. Images of Katniss – without her clothes; sitting astride him, her small breasts in his face and her nipples in his mouth – flash before his closed eyelids as he wraps his hand around his swollen cock and starts to stroke himself. Slowly, at first, as he wars with his conscience. But inevitably his hand speeds up as the pleasure inside him mounts and he starts to feel like he might die if he doesn't come soon.

He always saves the final image – the one of Katniss, naked and kneeling before him as he stands, her hand gripping the base of his cock as he thrusts roughly into her mouth – for last.

"Fuck!" he grits out behind clenched teeth as a thick white jet spurts out of him and onto his stomach. The quiet thrumming sound of the train drowns out the sound of his voice.

As he cleans himself up he always peers over to look at her, hoping against hope that he didn't wake her while he was pawing at himself like an animal.

But she never wakes up.

He wishes he could tell her what she means to him and how utterly and wretchedly he loves her.

But he knows he can tell her neither of these things.

 _This can't happen again,_ is always his final desolate thought as sleep takes him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

* * *

 _"They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible._

 _A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love."_

 _(Suzanne Collins, **Mockingjay** )_

* * *

It's suicide — or at the very least, seriously impaired thinking — coming down here to see Peeta like this, after midnight and all by herself. Katniss knows that.

Nothing but the medical wing's harsh overhead florescent lighting will be there to bear witness to this second reunion. No one will be there to save her this time if it all goes badly.

Katniss stuffs her hands into her pockets to try and control her trembling. She chooses to ignore Haymitch's voice, screaming at her in the back of her head to get the hell _out_ of there. She forces herself instead to listen only to her soft footfalls against the linoleum floor as her legs close the distance between her and Peeta's makeshift hospital room down the hall.

It doesn't matter that this is almost certainly a terrible idea. Because she has to try. Has to see.

She won't be able to sleep again until she knows.

* * *

He's awake when she enters his room.

It's dark. The doctors treating him apparently didn't think he'd need a light for reading this evening.

Katniss can see him well enough, though, even from five feet away. There's enough light coming in from the hallway behind her to cast a sickly glow over his entire body. She takes in his wan features, his tousled hair. The pale, unhealthy appearance of his skin.

She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees he's restrained, his hands firmly handcuffed to either side of the bed. And she hates herself a moment later for feeling relieved.

If Peeta is surprised to see Katniss here he shows no sign of it. He simply stares at her, wordlessly, with eyes that are at once his and not his. He looks at all of her. Her face, and at her disheveled hair. At her neck, where the bruises he left her are finally beginning to fade.

And then his eyes wander down, down, down as they take in her legs. Her ass. Her breasts.

At length Peeta's eyes flit back up to hers, unreadable and cold. Katniss feels herself turning red under his gaze.

She looks away.

* * *

The awkward silence stretches between them for several very long moments.

Eventually, Katniss decides that if she waits any longer she'll fly out of her skin.

Before either of them fully realize it's happening Katniss moves across the room in three long strides. Peeta opens his mouth to say something but she doesn't give him a chance to speak. She crushes her mouth to his and swallows whatever it was he was about to say, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling her body as close to his as she can.

This — a kiss not for the cameras, or for the Capitol, but for them — was exactly what the old Peeta would have wanted. Was willing to die for.

But not this Peeta. At first Katniss expects this new, broken Peeta to protest and fight against her with all his strength. And he does protest. A little, anyway. He fights against his restraints, tries to wriggle free from her embrace. To pry her arms away from him as best he can, to cast her away.

But then she roughly deepens the kiss with her tongue, and slides her hands down the front of his body in a firm caress, and he stops fighting.

"Oh," he whimpers into her mouth as the Peeta she used to know — the Peeta she loved, the Peeta she _loves_ — returns her kisses with fervor.

He mouths three words she still isn't ready to say out loud against her lips.

* * *

But it doesn't last.

It's over a half beat after Katniss places her hands on either side of his face in a gentle caress.

He grunts loudly and jerks his head to the side, as if finally coming out of a long fever dream, and then bites her lip, hard. Katniss shrieks and pulls away as she tastes her blood on her tongue.

She backs away from his hospital bed as quickly as she can. But it doesn't help.

"G _et the fuck away from me you mutt you MUTT YOU MUTT YOU_ MUTT!" he screams at her. " _GODDAMNIT GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! Doctor!_ DOCTOR!"

Katniss is gone before anyone can find her there.

* * *

She lies awake in her narrow bed for hours, mulling over what happened this evening with Peeta.

The brief moment of connection they'd had was more than she dared hope for when she foolishly snuck down there tonight. Perhaps it was the only moment like it they would ever share.

But Katniss knows now. Her heart is racing with the knowledge, her palms are damp with it. When she thinks of how good Peeta's body had _felt_ underneath her tonight — how his warm, wet lips had tasted pressed up against hers; how his tongue had felt, boldly slipping in and out of her mouth — Katniss' breath starts to come in short, quick pants.

She knows, now, with a certainty, that she loves Peeta Mellark. She knows it like she knows how to breathe, how to hunt, how to take care of Prim.

Knowing is at once a relief — a welcome solution to a troubling problem— and a fresh, new agony.

Resigned, Katniss takes Peeta's pearl out of her pocket, falling asleep with it against her lips.


	5. Chapter 5

Katniss thinks of lots of different ways to tell him.

This is something he's wanted – that they've _both_ wanted, really – for so long. Ever since that moment, years ago, when she realized she no longer needed to be afraid.

It was so long ago, their decision to do this, to just _go_ for it, that she'd almost given up hope it would ever happen.

But last night, while Peeta was sleeping, she'd gripped that little test with the two pink lines on it in her fist. And she stared at it until the sun rose.

There's no denying it's real, and it's here, and it's happening.

* * *

"I'm pregnant," she tells him when he comes home from the bakery that afternoon. Just like that. She's never been one for ceremony or for mincing words, and in the end she decides there's no need to hide the news to wrap it up in a pretty bow.

The packages in Peeta's hands fall to the floor with a crash. He's across the room in two long strides and he gathers her into his arms, holding her up in the air and swinging her around and around, laughing and crying, and this is everything she's ever wanted, the way he looks at her right now and the way she feels when she looks at him.

* * *

The months pass by both quickly and slowly. It's a nauseating feeling, a sensation rather like being trapped in a sticky resin, and being injected with an unstoppable energy, all at the same time.

Katniss couldn't really describe the feeling to anyone if she tried. So she doesn't.

She gets big, and then bigger, and then bigger still in what feels like the blink of an eye. She doesn't like it, though she won't admit that to Peeta, who still looks at her every night like she hung the moon. Her body is not truly her own anymore, and _that_ reminds her of a nightmare time she's spent hours and days and years doing everything in her power to forget.

She still goes into the woods as often she can, trying to ignore how much more difficult it is now to string her bow.

* * *

When Katniss feels the baby move for the first time her life divides, in a clean instant, into a _before_ and an _after_.

The rational part of her mind knows this is normal. That it's supposed to happen. But rationality evaporates like dew in the morning sunlight with the _flutter flutter kickkickkick_ she feels not so much in her belly as in her very soul, and all of the old fears and nightmares come back, unbidden, crashing down on her in a torrent.

"I think I'm in love with you," she admits, choking out the words on a quiet sob, standing on the stool in the kitchen, as she rubs her hands over and over and over her swollen stomach. She wills her unborn child to understand what she's saying and what she isn't. "And… and I'm terrified."

That night she spends hours locked in her old, but never forgotten nightmares of mutts and lost children. It takes Peeta hours to coax her awake and to bring her back to him.

* * *

They're having a picnic in the meadow when little Rose says her first words.

"I love you," she says, giggling and dancing and jumping around in that special way of hers. She toddles over to them from where she'd been playing, chubby arms outstretched, tiny fists full of dandelions.

"I love you, too!" Peeta exclaims, grinning from ear to ear. He turns to look at Katniss and his smile softens. "I love both of my beautiful girls."

"Thank you, for the beautiful flowers, dear," Katniss says, her smile matching Peeta's. She takes the flowers from her little girl and brings them up to her nose. "And they smell wonderful."

Rosie laughs, then, and laughs and laughs, her infectious energy bringing Peta, and then Katniss, to their feet. And together they dance and play and create beautiful new memories until the sun sets.


End file.
